Work! Half my
misery is caused by the thought that my work is at an end for ever.
It is all forsaking me, the delight of imagining great things, what
power I had of putting my fancies into words, the music that used to
go with me through the day's work. It is long since I wrote a line
of verse. Quietness, peace, a calm life of thought, these things are
what I _must_ have; I thought I should have them in a higher degree
than ever, and I find they are irretrievably lost. I feel my own
weakness, as I never could before. When you bid me strengthen
myself, you tell me to alter my character. The resolution needed to
preserve the better part of my nature through such a life as this,
will never be within my reach. It is fearful to think of what I
shall become as time goes on. I dread myself! There have been
revealed to me depths of passion and misery in my own heart which I
had not suspected. I shall lose all self-control, and become as
selfish and heedless as she is."
"No, you will not," said Waymark encouragingly. "This crisis will
pass over, and strength will be developed. We have a wonderful
faculty for accommodating ourselves to wretchedness; how else would
the world have held together so long? When you begin to find your
voice again, maybe you won't sing of the dead world any longer, but
of the living and suffering.
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